


Shout it From the Rooftops

by where_havealltheflowers_gone



Series: Song Inspired Fiction [8]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Ficlet, Flashbacks, Future Fic, M/M, Minor Violence, Songfic, Suicide, The Author Regrets Everything, What Have I Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-12
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 17:37:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/839559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/where_havealltheflowers_gone/pseuds/where_havealltheflowers_gone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian swallowed. "What happened, Mandy?" he demanded. <br/>     "He's- he's dead," she whispered.<br/>     Ian felt the phone slip from his hand as he slumped against the cold brick wall of the club. He was vaguely aware of a man asking him if he was okay. <br/>     "No," he thought dimly, "No, I will never be okay again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shout it From the Rooftops

**Author's Note:**

> I AM SO SORRY.
> 
> This was inspired by Impossible by James Arthur. I saw someone use it in a Gallavich fanvid and that song just sounds like a suicide note to me, so this wouldn't get out of my head. 
> 
> This is a different writing style from my other fics in this series, but I'm embracing all things. 
> 
> Oh, and the violence isn't all that graphic, just kinda blunt. And brief.

Ian stepped out of the dark, loud club to answer his phone. "Hello?" he said into it as he moved further down the street and away from the throbbing music.  
"Ian?" The voice was instantly familiar, even if it was muffled by emotion.  
"Mandy, hey." Ian responded happily.  
"Ya need to come home," she slurred.  
"How much have you had to drink?" Ian joked. He'd been living in New York for the past six years, after getting kicked out of the army and spending four years in prison. He'd left Chicago- his family, Mandy and a certain hoodlum- behind and never looked back. Not once. At least, that's what he told himself. He was harder to convince on the nights when alcohol and loneliness consumed him.  
"I'm fucking serious, Ian!" Mandy yelled. He could hear her choked sobs over their garbled connection.   
"What's wrong?" Ian questioned, concerned for the girl who'd been his best friend.  
"It's Mickey," she said shakily and then broke down into uncontrollable weeping again.  
Ian swallowed. "What happened, Mandy?" he demanded.   
"He's- he's dead," she whispered.  
Ian felt the phone slip from his hand as he slumped against the cold brick wall of the club. He was vaguely aware of a man asking him if he was okay.   
"No," he thought dimly, "No, I will never be okay again."

 

"This has your name on it," Mandy said flatly as she shoved an envelope into his hand. 'Gallagher' was scrawled on the front.   
"Why me?" Ian asked her while flipping it gingerly over and over in hos hands.  
She snorted. "If you think for a second that the dickhead didn't love you, you're an idiot." And then she was gone.   
He stared at the letter for three hours, laying on the squeaky bed in the shitty motel room he'd rented while he was in town for the funeral.   
He wondered if the whore and the baby were crying. No, he reminded himself, there was no baby. There had never been a baby. And the whore hadn't been around for years; Mandy had made that clear. And Mickey had spent the last ten years drinking and sitting on the front porch, staring at nothing and wasting away. Until he'd finally given up, wrote a couple letters,- one to him, one to Mandy- put a gun in his mouth, and blew his head off.  
Ian didn't open the letter.

 

"Ya ready to go again, or do you need sometime, Firecrotch?"  
"Fuck you is what you were invited to."  
"Take your hand off the glass."  
"Don't know what you see in that geriatric viagroid."  
"You're nothing but a warm mouth to me."  
"Oh, so whatchu goin' down for then?"  
"Not everybody gets to blurt out how they feel every fucking minute."  
Ian was willing to bang his head against the cement, if it meant the flashbacks would stop. 

 

He'd been in Chicago two months when he decided he needed to move back to New York. While he was packing, he found the letter Mickey had written him, the one he'd hidden and never opened.   
He sighed and ripped it open before he could lose his nerve.   
In Mickey's hurried writing, it read:

"Tell them all I know now,  
Shout it from the rooftops,  
Write it on the skyline.  
All we had is gone now.  
Tell them I was happy  
And my heart is broken.  
All my scars are open.  
Tell them what I hoped would be impossible." 

Taped next to the word 'happy' was a picture. When it was taken, Ian had been sleeping with his head on Mickey's shoulder. They were sitting against the headboard of Mickey's bed, the light in the room dim, like it was evening. Mickey was looking down at Ian, his lips resting on the redhead's forehead. The angle of the picture, up close and above them slightly, let Ian know Mickey had taken it. Ian hadn't even known the photo exsisted.   
He reread the words printed on the page and suddenly realized what they were referring to. He was guessing the picture was snapped the same day. It was the night Mickey had invited him to spend the night, the night before everything went to shit, the last good night of Ian's life:  
"You still fucking grandpa?" Mickey had asked with his lips locked around a cigarette. He didn't pry his eyes away from the movie they'd been watching, like this was a casual conversation.  
"Uh," Ian had stuttered, "No. Why?"   
Mickey had shrugged, handed the cigarette to him. "Just asking." There was a weird pause before Mickey said, "So, I guess that means we're like a thing or some shit."  
"A thing?"  
"You know, neither of us fucking anybody else, a thing."  
Ian remembered grinning so wide it had hurt his cheeks. "Boyfriends?"   
"Whatever, assface." Mickey had reached for the remote then and turned up the volume on the television, apparently done with the conversation.  
Ian let it go for a minute, but then he had added "ya know this means you're never getting rid of me now, right?"  
Mickey had smirked, eyes rolling towards the ceiling. "That'd be impossible, Gallagher."


End file.
